700Kg Overweight, is this a record?

Jasz

Jasz

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Feb 15, 2016
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Since April 2016
A friend of ours has just been on his first proper trip in his motorhome traveling round France. It appears that he went into Switzerland and at the border he had to go on a weighbridge where he was found to be 700kg overweight! Fortunately for him, he was traveling with friends who were in a Transit van and were 300kg under. He was able to transfer a load of stuff and his passenger to them and emptied all the water he was carrying (both fresh and waste). Surprisingly he was allowed to continue without the weight rechecked or a receiving a fine which could have been quite hefty.
I had previously suggested that he checked his weight (especially as he is temporarily living in it) but he hadn't done so.
 
At a recent weigh in of Funster’s at Peterborough we found 45% of vans were either overweight or were overloading the rear axle by more than 100kg. a couple of vans were overloaded by MUCH more than that.
 
Jim said:
At a recent weigh in of Funster’s at Peterborough we found 45% of vans were either overweight or were overloading the rear axle by more than 100kg. a couple of vans were overloaded by MUCH more than that.
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Long trips to Coventry then depending on the amount overweight? ?
 
I don't think it's that unusual by the amount of vans you see right down on their horches.
 
I’m sure I read a bit saying that vosa estimate that 80% of all Motorhomes are over weigh
 
All the above is the main reason why I looked at payload and axle loadings when replacing the last van. Twin rear wheels and 3500kg over the rear axle alone. 1 tonne payload. Was well under last time over a weigh bridge
 
Jim said:
At a recent weigh in of Funster’s at Peterborough we found 45% of vans were either overweight or were overloading the rear axle by more than 100kg. a couple of vans were overloaded by MUCH more than that.
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Which type of vans were overweight Jim; i.e. was it typically the 3.5T vans that were heavily exceeded or some of the big ones too.

You've just ran the successful 'teenie weenie payload' thread so I would be interested to know if the 3.5T class were the biggest offenders.

Regards,

Andrew

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Lenny HB said:
I going to sulk we have only 400kg spare.:cry:

At the rate I'm going if I can't get my blood pressure under control I might be running 600kg over next year.
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That is bloody good going Lenny !!
 
Blue Knight said:
Which type of vans were overweight Jim; i.e. was it typically the 3.5T vans that were heavily exceeded or some of the big ones too.

You've just ran the successful 'teenie weenie payload' thread so I would be interested to know if the 3.5T class were the biggest offenders.

Regards,

Andrew
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It would be interesting to see some (anonymous) stats on van type etc etc
 
We didn't keep any data at all. That was the promise, it was a personal, confidential weigh in.

That said..even those vans with the highest payload can be overloaded.

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Jim said:
We didn't keep any data at all. That was the promise, it was a personal, confidential weigh in.

That said..even those vans with the highest payload can be overloaded.
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Fully appreciate that and the reasons for it (y)

Just wondering if anyone else in the UK had such stats - would have made interesting reading
 
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I'm running at 4250kgs after upgrading via SVTech from 4005kgs which gave me a payload of 900kgs. Fine I thought until I went to a weighbridge with full tanks and fully loaded, found the rear axle was 70kgs over though over 100kgs spare at the front. Some non-essential kit removal and rearrangement of heavy and light equipment together with an empty fresh water tank got me right on the 2400kg limit for the rear axle. Still working on it! We do fulltime but things such as solar panels, satdish, b2b charger, inverter etc have eaten away at the payload. Now that I've moved the wine supply further forward to under the OHC bed should help considerably ?
 
Although it will upset a lot of people but I think that dealers / manufactures should not be able to sell a van with less than a certain payload.

I think a lot of new buyers assume a motorhome would have a sufficient payload.. basically they are not fit for purpose.
 
Our twin rear wheel Mercedes based Hymer was rated at 5T even at 8.2m I had thought that was plenty

Used a weighbridge a few years back and was over by 250kg without Bev and nowhere near as much as we often carry

Got replated at 5.5T and in Norway 2 years ago used a free to use roadside weigh point, we were 5555kg but were fully loaded at start of trip

We never drive overly fast, but it makes me wonder how well the very overweight ones would perform in emergency braking conditions ?
 
SMB said:
I'm running at 4250kgs after upgrading via SVTech from 4005kgs which gave me a payload of 900kgs. Fine I thought until I went to a weighbridge with full tanks and fully loaded, found the rear axle was 70kgs over though over 100kgs spare at the front. Some non-essential kit removal and rearrangement of heavy and light equipment together with an empty fresh water tank got me right on the 2400kg limit for the rear axle. Still working on it! We do fulltime but things such as solar panels, satdish, b2b charger, inverter etc have eaten away at the payload. Now that I've moved the wine supply further forward to under the OHC bed should help considerably ?
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You can often upgrade the rear axle to 2700 kg by fitting air suspension, new rims & tyres.

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addoaddo said:
Although it will upset a lot of people but I think that dealers / manufactures should not be able to sell a van with less than a certain payload.

I think a lot of new buyers assume a motorhome would have a sufficient payload.. basically they are not fit for purpose.
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I wonder where the rental market stands.........they happily rent out 4 berth or even 6 berth motorhomes to families and I wonder how much, if any at all, have they been upgraded from standard 3500, 3650, 3850 etc etc. I think I know the answer............ Combine that with lack of knowledge about payloads and weights from the average renter and you have a nice recipe for fines and points.

I imagine that the rental companies have a nice disclaimer hidden in their standard T&C's
 
DuxDeluxe said:
I wonder where the rental market stands.........they happily rent out 4 berth or even 6 berth motorhomes to families and I wonder how much, if any at all, have they been upgraded from standard 3500, 3650, 3850 etc etc. I think I know the answer............ Combine that with lack of knowledge about payloads and weights from the average renter and you have a nice recipe for fines and points.

I imagine that the rental companies have a nice disclaimer hidden in their standard T&C's
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On an Aire in France a French rental van next to us, couldn't see a plate on it but it had 15" wheels so fairly certain it was 3500kg, being a sad old git I looked up the van had about 450kg payload. Four adults in it, 4 full size MTB's on the back, table 4 chairs, big BBQ, garage stuffed with junk.
 
Lenny HB said:
On an Aire in France a French rental van next to us, couldn't see a plate on it but it had 15" wheels so fairly certain it was 3500kg, being a sad old git I looked up the van had about 450kg payload. Four adults in it, 4 full size MTB's on the back, table 4 chairs, big BBQ, garage stuffed with junk.
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Seen that a few times in UK. 15" wheels, even with suspension upgrade and bigger tyres will only give 3850. That lot on the back, I would hate to guess what it actually weighed over the back wheels
 
In all probability most coach builds approaching 7 metres at 3500kg once loaded are overweight, long overhangs with multiple bikes or large carry boxes mounted on the rear = rear axle overload, we have all seen them.

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Our rear axle limit is 3100kg weighed it with garage empty 2200kg so no chance of overloading.
GVW 4900kg on a 6.5 metre van again no chance of overloading.
 
In our naivety, when we sold up in 1998 and set off on our travels with a Leisuredrive camper towing a caravan, we loaded them both up to the hilt!!!! Overloading didn't cross our minds.

We headed to the Lake District for a 5 day orienteering event and on the way Martin did mention that the outfit felt heavy and that we'd have to reconsider what we were carrying.

Two days later we lost the caravan and contents to a flash flood whilst on a CL at Torver.

The insurance assessor wrote the caravan off (the camper we managed to drive off before the flood hit) but we then, subsequently towed a waterlogged caravan (with wet maps and books in the seat lockers) back down to Sheffield.

We cringe now at just how heavy it was!!!
 
On the day we set off for Scotland we had our van weighed at the Refuse Recycling Centre, free if he wrote it down on a slip of paper, or £35 for it to be printed out - we went for the paper slip.

We were fully loaded with a full tank of diesel, full water, 2 dogs with their gear as we were dropping off to kennels on our way. Both Mark and I had packed clothes for all eventualities in the weather (brought a lot of it back unworn!) and I'd also packed plenty of food, plus bottles of water.

We're registered at 3500kg and weighed in at 3140kg - 360kg to spare and pretty sure we'll have difficulty in going over that for any trip.
 
DavidG58 said:
We never drive overly fast, but it makes me wonder how well the very overweight ones would perform in emergency braking conditions ?
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Probably still far better than 30 year old ones with no abs etc,

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